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Get your balls, pucks, Scrabble boards and packs of cards away from me – all I want is space to be together, ideally with a coffee or a glass of wine

The other day, I met a friend at the park for a catch-up. After 45 minutes of blissful note-swapping – my new tabi shoes, his new boyfriend – he pulled out a pair of ping-pong paddles and indicated a nearby table. “Fancy a quick game?” We are no longer speaking.

I’m joking, but only sort of. As far as I’m concerned, games of any sort ought to be illegal once everyone present is over the age of 12. I will make grudging exceptions for professional athletes, because apparently they’re earning a living, and realistically there is very little chance of me being asked to join in with, say, the Wimbledon final. But when it comes to anything less formal, the risk of being corralled is just too high: bat those balls, pucks, packs of cards, spinning bottles and Scrabble boards away from me, please.

Emily Watkins is a freelance writer based in London

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Alcohol is embedded in profession where long hours, loneliness and lobbying are the norm, report finds

Parliament is “Britain’s last alcohol-soaked workplace” where MPs are offered free drinks as early as midday despite alcohol-related scandals, a report has revealed.

Drinking is commonplace and some MPs have had their stomachs pumped after consuming so much alcohol that they ended up in hospital, one disclosed.

Private White VC’s James Eden says PM should not be criticised for wearing a high-quality British-made brand

It has not yet been two weeks since James Eden, the founder of the Manchester men’s clothier Private White VC, saw one of his best-known customers move in to No 10 Downing Street.

In any sane world the man who makes the prime minister’s jackets would be popping open the champagne. His garments have been seen by millions of people and described by journalists all over the world writing about Burnham’s buttoned-down style.

Прочитал на досуге книгу Moshe A. Milevsky «Retirement Income Recipes in R». В расчете познакомиться с языком R и понять как актуарная наука (страховщики) работает со случайностью времени жизни, на чем автор довольно подробно останавливался, а я раньше игнорировал. И как это можно включать в симуляции финансовых планов. В этой статье хочу поделиться некоторыми полезностями оттуда. Может, кому-то пригодятся.

After a rollercoaster week at the Commonwealth Games, the double Olympic champion says he will never stop believing what he can achieve

“I couldn’t switch off because it’s been a real rollercoaster of a week,” Adam Ramsay-Peaty says with a weary smile on a quiet Thursday morning in Glasgow. He has just endured a rough night in which, after winning his third medal of the Commonwealth Games, he managed less than three hours of sleep. The medals consist of bronze in the 100m and 50m breaststroke and a silver in the men’s 4x100m medley. For most swimmers this would constitute success and satisfaction, but Ramsay-Peaty is different.

The fact that none of his three medals are gold, or attached to anything remotely like the kind of supreme performance that Ramsay-Peaty churned out with an aura of invincibility for eight years, has taken a chunk out of the double Olympic champion. There have been tears of frustration and an admission that “nothing makes sense this week”.

Helicopter surveillance finds dead and dying greater crested terns off South Australian coast as H5 virus spreads

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More than 80 dead and sick birds seen on rocks off the South Australian coast are suspected to be the first mass mortality event from the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, only six weeks after the disease arrived in Australia.

Authorities reported on Saturday that helicopter surveillance had revealed 49 dead greater crested terns on Baudin Rocks, near Robe, as well as 35 more sick terns.

Nigel Farage’s £5m gift, the Cottrell family’s links and donations, and Richard Tice’s business dealings form part of an increasingly clear nexus of relationships

It has been three months since the Guardian revealed that Nigel Farage had accepted a £5m gift from Christopher Harborne, a billionaire donor to Reform UK.

This was not the first story in our continuing investigation. But it has proved the most significant, and the consequences of the disclosure are still being played out.

Labour politicians say mutualised model puts public in control without adding debt to government’s balance sheet

MPs and mayors close to Andy Burnham have told the prime minister there is a “third way” to gain more control of failing companies, as the row over whether or not to nationalise Thames Water rumbles on.

Burnham is said to be concerned about the increase in government debt that Treasury projections show could be a result of nationalising water companies.

Supporters fear structure could be torn down as safety hazard and want it to become memorial to postwar foreign labourers in honour of its Turkish creator

Sometimes the currents of history converge in a single spot. In Berlin, one of the most intriguing of those places is a small traffic island with a lovingly tended garden and a ramshackle two-storey structure called the Treehouse at the Wall.

In 1983, Osman Kalin, a Turkish “guest worker”, was looking in his corner of the city cleaved by the Berlin Wall for a patch of earth in which to plant his onions, garlic and cucumbers. Virtually on his doorstep in the Kreuzberg district was a slice of no man’s land next to the concrete barrier and barbed wire. Although it sat in West Berlin, cold war logic meant the lot officially belonged to the communist East.

Five multiple-choice questions – set by children – to test your knowledge, and a chance to submit your own junior brainteasers for future quizzes

• ​Submit a question

Molly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun, a podcast answering children’s questions. Do check out her books, Everything Under the Sun and Everything Under the Sun: Quiz Book, as well as her new title, Everything Under the Sun: All Around the World.

From a corned beef sandwich and a harmonica to Zener cards, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 Which mountain range is home to the world’s second-highest peak?
2 Which pioneer of conceptualism retired from art to play chess?
3 Who is the only Jesuit to become pope?
4 Which ancient shark grew to around 18 metres long?
5 Baseball is the national sport of which South American country?
6 Which global news organisation is based in Qatar?
7 In the aftermath of a scandal, who changed her family’s name to Holland?
8 Zener cards are used to test for what ability?
What links:
9 Banjul; Nassau; San Salvador?
10 Evert (5); Jaeger; Mandlíková; Graf; Garrison?
11 Corned beef sandwich; golf balls; harmonica; postal covers?
12 Altar Stone; Aubrey Holes; Heel Stone; Slaughter Stone; Station Stones?
13 Squiggly, Glasgow; Mathematical, Cambridge; Winking Eye, Newcastle?
14 Nimue and Viviane; Florence Nightingale; Elaine of Astolat for Tennyson; Bennett’s Mary Shepherd?
15 1; 4; 3; 11; 15; 13; 17; 43?

Rabat is a gorgeous seaside city with great food and culture, but for book lovers there’s an added incentive to go this year

The first book I read willingly was Bridget Jones’s Diary. I was 19. Up to that point, I hadn’t been much of a reader. I’d been more into football, or Baywatch, or Robin Budd in the year above – anything really. Given the choice between reading a book and staring at a wall, I would have plumped for the latter.

After finishing my A-levels, I worked in a barbecue restaurant in Portsmouth – which is where I found Bridget Jones. The book was lying around in the staffroom. I picked it up and read a few pages, and then a few more, and then a few more. It felt exciting. Like I’d met someone. Like I was suddenly in a relationship. Over the next few days, I remember cancelling nights out so I could go to bed and read. My mum thought I was depressed.

In this week’s newsletter: ​H​idden creators ​reveal how invisibility can be a shield and spotlight in an era of relentless self‑exposure

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In 1985, an anonymous group of women disguised in gorilla masks burst on to the art scene in New York. At night, the Guerrilla Girls, as they named themselves, fly-posted around the city: funny, eye-catching posters highlighting gender and racial biases in museums and galleries. (“Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?” read one now-famous poster.) “Of course, we were afraid that if we blew the whistle on some of [the art world’s] most powerful people, we could kiss off our art careers,” a founding member explained in an interview for their 1995 book. “But mainly, we wanted the focus to be on the issues, not on our personalities or our own work.”

The collective is still active; 55 members have come and gone over the years. When giving interviews, they use pseudonyms borrowed from dead women artists: Frida Kahlo, Lee Krasner, Käthe Kollwitz. Only a handful of their true identities have been revealed over the years, mostly after their deaths or due to lawsuits. But this week, a Guerrilla Girl made headlines when she chose to unmask herself on her own terms. “I’d had a pact with another Girl that whoever died first, the survivor would bring her out,” said the 83-year-old artist Joyce Kozloff (codename: Liubov Popova). “But I suddenly realised that if I were dead, I couldn’t tell the story my way.”

Labour politicians say mutualised model puts public in control without adding debt to government’s balance sheet

MPs and mayors close to Andy Burnham have told the prime minister there is a “third way” to gain more control of failing companies, as the row over whether or not to nationalise Thames Water rumbles on.

Burnham is said to be concerned about the increase in government debt that Treasury projections show could be a result of nationalising water companies.

Animated cats banter tediously in a show that’s determined to shock, but which leaves you checking your watch to see how long is left. It’s lazy, dated and far too pleased with itself

According to multiverse theory, there are parallel realities in which news of a new Ricky Gervais project instils a feeling other than dread. But we don’t live in them. Having seen his new series, Alley Cats (Netflix, from Friday 7 August), a boorish banter-vehicle in which animated cats shoot the breeze like a bunch of pub bores, I’m not sure what there is to report – other than the fact that I didn’t laugh once. Considering what a fan I once was, I find this remarkable. What happened?

Woke happened, is what his diehard fans would say. Gervais has paid the price of a shifting Overton window on jokes about dwarves and disabled people and trans people. You can’t say anything any more, they lament, while defending a wealthy, highly platformed man who proves the opposite. They’re not wrong, though – politics plays a part. While writing this, I stepped outside to say hello to a queer friend who was, naturally, buying a bicycle in the street. I asked her what she made of Ricky Gervais.

Supporters fear structure could be torn down as safety hazard and want it to become memorial to postwar foreign labourers in honour of its Turkish creator

Sometimes the currents of history converge in a single spot. In Berlin, one of the most intriguing of those places is a small traffic island with a lovingly tended garden and a ramshackle two-storey structure called the Treehouse at the Wall.

In 1983, Osman Kalin, a Turkish “guest worker”, was looking in his corner of the city cleaved by the Berlin Wall for a patch of earth in which to plant his onions, garlic and cucumbers. Virtually on his doorstep in the Kreuzberg district was a slice of no man’s land next to the concrete barrier and barbed wire. Although it sat in West Berlin, cold war logic meant the lot officially belonged to the communist East.

Nigel Farage’s £5m gift, the Cottrell family’s links and donations, and Richard Tice’s business dealings form part of an increasingly clear nexus of relationships

It has been three months since the Guardian revealed that Nigel Farage had accepted a £5m gift from Christopher Harborne, a billionaire donor to Reform UK.

This was not the first story in our continuing investigation. But it has proved the most significant, and the consequences of the disclosure are still being played out.

В июле 2026 года информационная служба Хабра выпустила 1038 публикаций (975 новостей и постов, 7 лонгридов и 56 переводов). В текущем дайджесте представлены лучшие технические новости, переводы и лонгриды (отдельные большие публикации) инфослужбы Хабра, согласно оценкам пользователей.

Whey protein, a key infant formula ingredient, is in growing demand, partly linked to rising use of weight-loss drugs

The rise of “proteinmaxxing” – a trend in which consumers try to eat as much protein as possible – could lead to higher prices for infant formula, experts warn.

Whey protein, a key ingredient in infant formula, has surged in popularity over the past year as health professionals emphasise the benefits of protein.

World-class venue puts renewed focus on staff wellbeing under new head chef after René Redzepi stepped down and apologised for his behaviour

The Copenhagen restaurant Noma – often ranked among the world’s best – is preparing to reopen next week under new leadership for the first time since its star chef and co-founder, René Redzepi, stepped down amid accusations of physical and psychological abuse.

The new executive head chef, Pablo Soto, who has worked at the restaurant for nearly a decade, said while it remained “the same Noma” there had been some significant changes. Along with a new, evolving monthly menu to replace its previous seasonal one, he said there was now a heightened focus on enabling employees to live full lives.

The double assassination of two Scots in the Costa del Sol may have ended the war between the Lyons and the Daniels – but the crimes haven’t gone away

It was a warm evening in Fuengirola on the Costa del Sol last year when two Scottish men met a violent end.

The punters of Monaghans seafront bar had barely finished watching the Nations League final on 8 June when a car pulled up outside. A masked gunman emerged and headed to the table of 46-year-old Eddie Lyons Jr, shooting him at point-blank range. The assassin turned the gun on Lyons’ friend, the bar’s owner Ross Monaghan, 43, but it jammed.

Wildfires in Europe, Russian missile strikes in Lviv, a tornado in Wisconsin and Spencer Tunick in Spain – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

These roasted oyster mushrooms are meaty, savoury and chewy, made even more satisfying in a south-east Asian-style dressing

Not every plant makes a great burger filling. You might think pulses or potatoes for heft, but the lack of texture and propensity to mush can be unsatisfying. This is where mushrooms excel; they trade in satisfaction. Roasting them brings out their natural umami and removes water content, leaving them chewy, caramelised and occasionally crisp. They can also make friends with the most unlikely of ingredients, like they have here with peanut butter, soy, agave and sesame.

With a prime minister raised in a tradition that emphasises our mutual dependency, we may finally have a leader who can address the anomie gripping our country

Like Andy Burnham, I was once an enthusiastic altar boy, although I don’t recall competing to be at the front with the communion plate as the prime minister apparently did. Much of my motivation had little to do with piety. The tips received for serving at weddings were often very generous and I got on well with Father Jerome, an engagingly worldly monk from Ampleforth who shared my passion for Manchester United.

I’m five years older than Burnham, but the atmosphere of the small-town northern Catholicism we grew up with will have been much the same. The second Vatican council’s reforms, responding to the social changes under way since the 1960s, were “democratising” the tone and style of worship, and traditionalists were mourning the sidelining of the old Latin mass. The huge success of Pope John Paul II’s groundbreaking visit to Britain in 1982 – the first by a reigning pontiff – had made the faith seem more mainstream and less rarefied. Politically, most Catholics voted Labour, and the large number of Celtic surnames in parish registers testified to a demographic significantly different from Anglican congregations, which were both more English and more Tory.

Julian Coman is a Guardian associate editor

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

A poetic coming-of-age tale haunted by racial profiling among the Asian community in Luton, while a BBC documentary unearths troubling allegations against the high-profile celeb. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the last seven days